Posted by By IGNATIUS ANOPUO, Abuja on
Henry Mbalagu, 38 , hails from Ituku in Awgwu LGA of Enugu State. He resides and does his business in the Nigeria/Cameroon border town of Abong in Kurmi LGA of Taraba state.
Henry Mbalagu, 38 , hails from Ituku in Awgwu LGA of Enugu State. He resides and does his business in the Nigeria/Cameroon border town of Abong in Kurmi LGA of Taraba state.
On the Sunday morning of July 10, 2005, he crossed the border to the town of Abongshe in Cameroon from where he would travel all day to buy cattle from the Birika Cattle Market.Unknown to him, a plan had been concluded to assassinate him on his way to the Market.
While he was waiting to board a vehicle at Abongshe, one Musa, a motorcycle mechanic/ Okada rider, approached him and offered to take him on a bike to the market. Musa is also a resident of Abongshe and well known to Mbalagu and, considering the fact that the bike option is faster on a very rough road, Henry agreed at a negotiated price to ride with Musa. Musa then asked Henry to allow him some minutes to drop a passenger nearby before they would set out on their journey.
Musa allegedly used this time to take his two accomplices to where they lay the ambush along a rough and lonely road while he came down to pick Henry.
Midway into the journey, between Abongshe and Ako, Henry noticed that Musa was unusually and unnecessarily increasing the speed of the okada which horn was not functioning. And soon after that two men appeared from the bush about fifty meters in front of them. Both men wore masks and one was dressed in a military camouflage, armed with a pistol, while the other in mufti was armed with a big club. Henry asked Musa to stop but he wouldn't. As Musa stopped in front of the men who were later identified [names with-held], Henry jumped down and took to his heels. He was ordered to stop or they would shoot him but he continued. When they pulled the trigger, the pistol failed to fire and they chased him down the road.
When Musa noticed that Henry was almost escaping he rode down on his bike and stopped him. The three of them descended on Henry and after a struggle, they overpowered him, clubbed him and dragged him about one kilometre into the bush where they brutally battered his head. While they were dragging Henry into the bush, he heard Musa reminding his associates that their main mission was to assassinate him and that no chances would be taken.
This piece of information was used by Henry to his own advantage. Bleeding profusely from the mouth, nose, ears, eyes and with severe injuries on the head, he feigned death as he acted his last breath and ceased breathing. After watching him for about five minutes, the three men were convinced that he was dead.
They searched him, took away the sum of N1.2m in Cameroon currency, his travel documents and a mobile phone and left him in a pool of his blood.
Musa then asked his accomplices to cross over to Nigeria (Abongshe) and wait for him. He then came down to Abongshe and sent a message to Henry's business partner that armed robbers attacked him and Henry but he escaped as they dragged Henry into the bush. After over two hours of his arrival at Abongshe, he reported the same to people who knew when he took Henry away on a bike. A search team was immediately raised, and led by Musa.
To Musa's greatest surprise, they met Henry not only alive but able to talk and identify some of the rescue team members through their voices since he could not see. Henry was taken to a nearby missionary hospital where he received and responded to treatment.
Musa was later arrested in Cameroon where he made a confessional statement that led to the arrest of his associates in Nigeria by the police.
In Cameroon, where Musa is being held, he confessed that two businessmen[names withheld] had commissioned him and the two men to carry out the assassination of Henry who they said posed an obstacle as a very strong competitor in their business. The sponsors of the murder plot are presently sleeping with only one eye shut as irate youths in the community are at daggers drawn, ready to seek revenge on what they describe as unkind cut on a hapless son of the soil.